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We have outgrown our old home in Skagway. Some of you may or may not know how small our old home was. We have lived in a 30 foot travel trailer for the past 4 summers. We are not talking about a luxurious travel trailer, with pop-outs, bunks, or anything fancy. It was a simple, inexpensive place…and it fit the bill for the 2 years we lived in it. Ella would sleep on the couch in the living room/kitchen, and Maiya slept in her tent in the only place a little tent could fit. We had about 5 feet down the hallway to our room, which was divided by an accordion screen door. The shower was itty bitty…about a 1/4 size of a normal bath. Jared had to bend down to take a shower–he was too tall for the short ceiling in the tub. The bathroom had just enough room for 1 person to stand in it.

So, how did this new home come to be, you ask? (Okay, so you didn’t…but I’m telling you anyway…)

A few months ago a fellow business owner called us and begged us to rent out our trailer (we were looking for a buyer for ours, but weren’t having luck). She made a financial offer that we couldn’t refuse, and therefore, we went on the hunt for a new, more family-friendly travel trailer.

We found a trailer that seemed like a perfect fit, and it arrived just 2 weeks ago. We didn’t see it in person before making the big purchase, but we were relieve when it arrived to learn that it was exactly what we had envisioned! We feel like we are living in the lap of luxury, now!

We now have a Cherokee 40DL, made by Forest River. It is 40 feet long, has 2 bedrooms, a king bed, 3 bunk beds, 1.5 baths, 2 lofts, 2 huge pop-outs, a full-size fridge, and super-high ceilings! We suddenly feel as if we’re living in a “cabin,” and not a tiny trailer!!

It’s hard to take photos of small spaces (however large they may seem to us!). So here’s a random assortment of photos:

Maiya at our larger dinette:Our pop-out in the living room/dining room has sunroofs!! Wohoo! Natural light!!Turning right, you head into our bedroom, which has a large sliding wall door, or an optional small door next to the front entrance. I know that doesn’t make any sense…so I’ll explain more later. In this far corner is our 1/2 bath…our private sink and potty! 🙂 Not to mention a his/hers wardrobe, and drawers we’ve never had!

Our king-sized bed!Our couch, and the sliding wall door leading into our bedroom is open.The “optional” small door to the right of the large sliding wall (making sense, yet?). Notice the ladder going up? That goes up to our large storage loft! We also have sliding glass doors for our entrance. Lovely!My kitchen that doesn’t require me to be standing on top of children while cooking! (Much safer this way). And a sweet full-sized fridge that I have yet to fill. One thing about going vegan…you eat fresher, and therefore don’t use nearly as much fridge space! But more kids just means more food…right? Oh, and I made cool magnet spice bottles to keep my spices accessible and out of the way (cupboard space is smaller than our old place):Here we are, looking back on the master bedroom (now do you understand the large sliding door/wall concept, as well as the smaller door near the entrance? AND…the 32″ flatscreen attached above the door was a total bonus. We didn’t know it was even coming with that!Looking the opposite direction is the kid’s playroom/loft…with stairs! Have you ever seen a trailer big enough to have stairs? Neither had we!! Straight ahead on bottom is the girls’ bunk room, and the full bathroom on the left.Ella modeling her playroom.Ella modeling her bedroom with the fold-down couch, and fold-down upper bunk on the right. This is where I should start apologizing for Ella’s lovely outfit, and lovely bed hair. She was straight of bed when I took these photos.The girls’ bedroom has a large entertainment center/drawers on the left, which has a large bunk bed on top–Ella’s bed!Ella modeling the bathroom. Oh, and Jared can stand up in this shower…in fact, he can’t even reach the ceiling! We have a nifty “Fantastic Fan” that has proven to live up to its name! We can’t even reach the fan to open it, so it has a “fantastic” automatic switch which opens it, and turns it on! Oh, now you know what excites me 🙂

The tub is also twice the size as the old one, and we have a 10 gallon water heater, as opposed to a 6 gallon heater, so we actually get warm showers/baths, now!Our MUCH larger bathroom…you could probably fit 4 adults in here all at once! Not that we’d want to…hahaha!!

And we now have the COOLEST EVER washer/dryer combo in ONE!! Yes, that’s right folks—put in your wash, and it will dry it when it is done washing! You don’t have to take anything out until it is ready to hang up in your closet!! It is very small…so you can only do itty bitty loads…but you can easily do 1 or 2 a day without hassle!!

And now I need to get back to hanging the metal embossed work (from Mexico) in our store. It is 8pm, and I’d really like to go home!!

New home, new store, new cargo trailer!! Things are looking good for you guys.You sure know how to have fun. From Mexico to Alaska your photos are great. I hope one day Brooke and I can get up to Alaska to visit you. I think it would remind us of Norway (which we miss tremendously).